Chapter 4
FOUR
Efa
As I make my way down to the basement, the people coming up the stairs don’t even meet my eye, let alone look up to greet me. I can feel the stress in the air. I can’t help but wonder if it’s always like this. Maybe the lack of sleep last night is making me paranoid and I’m just imagining things.
I was supposed to meet Gretel in her office on the ground floor, but when I got there, someone directed me to the basement.
I glance around and through an internal window, where there’s a meeting taking place. Going by the uniforms, it looks like the housekeeping staff is gathered.
Someone pops their head out the door. “Are you Eddie?”
Hearing my name, the name everyone has called me without exception for a very long time, makes an image of Bennett flash in my brain. Specifically, how his lips curled around the name I was born with.
I shake myself out of the half-second trance and nod. “Yes. I’m looking for Gretel.”
“I’m Gretel. Come in. I’m going to put you in housekeeping for the first couple of days. There’s been a bit of a bug going around, so we’re short-staffed. Join us.”
Gretel is British and instantly I feel a little more at home. She holds the door open and I stand against the wall, listening to the person at the head of the room.
“It’s going to be a tough day. But we’re fucking New Yorkers. We eat tough for breakfast.”
Frankly, I could do without a tough day. Last night was the kind I need two days to recover from. Approximately. I don’t know exactly because I’ve never experienced anything like it. Bennett was attractive, attentive, and had a dick that should be certified dangerous, but it wasn’t just that. He seemed to know my body. Maybe he just got it because he was older. Maybe Americans are just better at sex. Or maybe Bennett is a witch.
I’m ticking the box that says “all of the above,” because I still feel him in every muscle in my body, in the oval bruises on my hips where he tried to hold me still as I writhed beneath him. I still feel him in the chafed skin of my thighs from his stubble as he worked his tongue so expertly. Again and again.
Last night was a revelation and I need processing time. Hell, I need recovery time.
Someone groans, pulling me back to the moment. The woman at the front talking points her finger at the groaner. “Don’t you dare go down. I need you.”
It feels like I’m in a football locker room, not next to three industrial washing machines in the basement of a New York hotel.
“We’ll do this. And then we’ll do it again tomorrow.”
Gretel steps forward. “Thank you in advance for all your hard work. I’m going to do my best to get agency staff and draft in other members of the hotel.” She puts her hand on my shoulder. “Eddie’s the first newbie of the day. More to follow.”
There’s a whooping from someone in the audience, and I can’t tell if it’s for me or the idea that more hands on deck have been promised.
The meeting breaks up and people start to move around.
“It’s going to be a bit of a baptism of fire,” Gretel says, turning to me. “Best way to learn in my experience. Plus we don’t have a choice. There’s been a vomiting bug passing through the housekeeping staff, which means we’re understaffed by thirty percent. There’s a lot to do, but you won’t be on your own. You’re going to be working with Marcella. She’s our longest-serving housekeeper and works exclusively on the suites. If you can work on suites, you can work anywhere. It’s a good training ground. You up for it?” She doesn’t wait for a response, just waves over her shoulder and shouts, “Marcella, this is Eddie. Come say hi.”
I’m not going to mention that up until the age of sixteen, we had housekeepers that did all our cleaning. I’m just going to get stuck in.
“I’m up for it,” I say decisively, even though I get the impression neither Marcella nor Gretel have time to give a shit. Which is fair enough. Everyone is clearly in panic mode.
“That’s the spirit,” Gretel says. “You’ll be here for the week. At least. Marcella will deal with your hours and uniform. Any questions, you know where I am.”
I nod, silently terrified about what I’ve let myself in for. A summer job sounded like a great idea. A summer job in New York sounded even better. Now that I’m in the basement of this hotel, I’m starting to get homesick.
“Hey,” says a tiny woman with very white teeth, her black hair tied back in a bun. She pulls a trolley behind her. “Come and I’ll show you how to stock a cart. Grab that one.” She indicates to a black, open-shelved trolley up against the wall. “It’s Debbie’s but she won’t be in this week.”
I go ahead and maneuver the trolley toward Marcella as everyone disperses.
“This is the room that stocks everything non-food,” she says.
Marcella’s not going to want to tell me anything twice, so I pull up my phone and start making notes.
“I always start with towels, because it’s a pain in the ass to be short on towels. We’ve been running out of bath mats lately, so be sure to grab those first.”
I type furiously.
“These are bath towels—not to be confused with bath mats,” she says. “Five in a pack,” she says, picking up a stack of towels wrapped in plastic. “We do suites, but don’t be fooled thinking we’re going to need fewer towels. The people in the suites like a lot of extra towels.”
She rips through the plastic and starts stacking towels on the bottom shelf of the trolley. I copy her. We do the same with hand towels and bath mats. “Some girls stack their carts the night before.” She winces. “Things tend to go missing overnight, and then you’re stuck going through the whole process all over again the next day. Better to wait for the morning.”
“The other housekeepers take stuff?”
She nods. “It’s usually only agency staff and the evening staff that do it—the lazy ones. There’s a core eight of us that would never act like that to each other, but…” She shrugs. “It’s dog-eat-dog in this business.”
Dog-eat-dog? What are we doing, mixed martial arts or making beds?
She shows me to the cabinet with the toiletries. “Make sure your refill cans are topped up. It’s a pain in the ass having to top up the shampoo and conditioner and shower gel and not just replace the disposable bottles, but that’s what you get when you treat the planet like shit. If you see one of these…” She holds up a white, plastic funnel that seems like it’s attached to a chain she wears around her waist. “Grab it and don’t let it go. They’re like gold dust. I take this little fucker home with me or it would be gone in an instant.” She snaps her fingers. “Without it, half the shampoo ends up in the bath and you end up spending too long cleaning it off and going to get more refills.”
I surreptitiously scan the area for a funnel, but the room is so full with stuff, I can’t see anything other than color.
“I can send you a link on Amazon,” she says.
“Oh, you bought your own?” I ask.
She just shrugs.
We finish stocking our trollies, which I actually quite enjoy, making room for everything like a giant jigsaw. We double-check we have all the cleaning supplies we need, then head toward the lifts.
“Second rule of housekeeping, after restocking the towels first, is always use the service elevators. You’ll get fired if anyone sees you using a guest elevator. But the service elevators are always next to the guest elevators through the door opposite, so you can still follow the signs.”
“Okay, good tip.”
Out of the elevators, I follow Marcella along a corridor. “If we can get into these two suites at the same time, it saves us from having to go down to the basement and across to the other elevators. Saves so much time. But… third rule is, do whatever you can to service the rooms when the guest is out.”
“Okay, isn’t that always the case?”
She sucks in a breath like I have too much to learn for this lifetime. “Absolutely not. Especially in the suites. Some of them are used just like someone’s home. They’re not necessarily out at work or sightseeing all day. But if the guest is in-room, it’s the worst. First off, they always remember a thousand more things they want: extra facecloths, more tissues, a blanket or a different type of pillow. Plus they watch how you do things and the number of complaints you get is ridiculous. People have very firm views on how long the vacuum should be running.” She rolls her eyes. “The upside is that the tips go up when guests can put a face to the person cleaning up their shit. Literally, in some cases.”
“Oh, well, that’s good,” I say.
“It’s the only good thing about it. If you can, avoid it. Especially if you’re new.”
We arrive at a hotel door and she flashes me a smile. “This”—she points at the light by the door that glows orange—“this is what you’re looking for. They’ve pressed ‘make up the room’—that means they’re out and they want their room done ASAP.” She presses the buzzer next to the sign. “Always ring the bell, even when they’ve put the sign on. You never know what you might walk in on. Last year, Trudy walked in on a man naked, writing all over himself with a Sharpie.”
“Was it a performance art project or something?”
There’s no answer, so she slips out a key and lets us in. “Who knows. But nobody’s mental health needs to see shit like that. Always knock.”
She tucks her plastic key into her apron pocket. “Carts always stay outside. This guest is on his own, so it’s a relatively easy clean. Can you start by emptying the trash cans? I’ll bring out the used towels.”
“Sure,” I say. We both get to work. The suite is beautiful. There’s a living room with a large L-shaped sofa opposite a big-screen TV with stunning views toward the park. There’s a bar at one end, a desk at the other, and a door leading through to a dining room, complete with eight chairs. I empty the rubbish and line the bins with fresh bags, while Marcella moves the dirty towels out of the bathroom and then comes into the bedroom to strip the beds of their sheets.
“Let’s make the bed,” she says. “We need yellow sheets.”
That didn’t sound right, but I follow her to the trolley.
“You see?” She points to some yellow stitching at the edge of the sheets. “The reds are small doubles. The yellows are kings. We use mainly yellows.”
We set to work and Marcella patiently teaches me how to make the bed—something I thought was a simple task I’d been doing for years, but apparently not as a professional.
“You prefer people traveling on their own?” I ask, trying to make conversation.
“Yes, and for business. Those people tend to be tidy and are out a lot, so there’s no problem getting in there to service the room. They don’t tip as well, but that’s okay. I prefer an easy life.”
“How long do people stay?”
“Usually only a couple of days. But the guy in here has been here almost a week and there’s no sign of him leaving. Apparently, he’s booked in for a month.”
“A month? How come?”
“Who knows. Maybe his apartment is flooded? Has roaches? But we don’t get many people here in that scenario because the insurers won’t pay the room rates. Especially the suites. So I don’t know this guy’s deal. Maybe he cheated on his wife and she’s kicked him out.”
We finish making the bed and Marcella shows me how to reset the room—how the remote control must go in the same place, how we have to check the notepads have paper and any guest charger wires or computer cables are secured in neat loops with a hotel-branded cable tidy. Everywhere is dusted, curtains are pulled to exactly the same distance each side, cushions are plumped and put back in a specific order only Marcella seems to know. Tables are tidied and the fruit bowl taken away.
I open the wardrobe doors to put back a discarded coat hanger. Dark suits fill the space on one side, bright white shirts on the other. I slot in the additional hanger to the end of the row and trail my hands over the suit jackets. Someone has expensive taste. I get a whiff of a familiar scent I can’t place. It smells rich and dark and sexy. My mind is still so full of Bennett, I can’t imagine who else would smell like this. I shake my head, trying to clear my mind of images of the night before, and close the wardrobe door.
Marcella works like lightning. She’s done three things by the time I get to the end of a question about my one job.
We’re almost finished in the bathroom when Marcella comes in with additional loo roll. “The other suite on this level—the Avenue—has just put their light on. The only thing left in here is the mirrors. Can I leave you in here to do that and I’ll make a start down the hall?”
She must see the panic in my face. The mirrors run all along the vanity unit behind the two sinks and on the backs of the doors. I’ve never cared whether mine at home are perfectly clean, as long as I can see through them.
“Don’t worry, I’ll come back and check them.”
“I’ll do my best,” I say.
“Okay, I’ve cleared out all our things and I’m going to move the carts so they’re by the Avenue Suite. Just come to me when you’re done.” She hands me two cloths and a bottle of what I hope is miracle glass cleaner.
I set to work, determined to do a good job. Training me must be additional work Marcella really didn’t need today, and she already works really hard. I don’t want her to have to redo the mirrors in here. I need to lighten her load a little.
I’m a few minutes into my transformation of the mirrors when I hear the door to the suite open. Shit, I really wanted to be finished before she came back. She’s probably finished the Avenue Suite by now and I haven’t even managed to clean some mirrors.
She must have forgotten something because she doesn’t come in right away. That gives me an extra few seconds to finish things off.
I’m polishing the mirror on the back of the door when something behind me catches my eye. There’s a smear behind the left sink. I spin, determined to get it before Marcella walks in. I reach it just as the double doors to the bathroom open.
I glance up expecting Marcella in the reflection, but it’s not her I see.
The room sways, but I manage to spin until I’m face-to-face with… Bennett.
I reach for the marble counter to steady myself. I glance down to find he’s bare-chested. He’s only wearing shorts, and even though I’ve seen him in less, it takes me a minute to get my breath.
I know what that chest feels like. I know what those hands can do. I know how his mouth tastes.
“What the fuck are you doing in my bathroom?” he yells, pulling me out of the vortex of memories from last night.
His bathroom?
His tone takes me by surprise. Last night he seemed to be the kind of guy who wouldn’t be fazed by anything or anyone. Like he could stand, with his hands in his pockets, and wouldn’t move if a hurricane passed through. Yet me cleaning his bathroom is getting him riled.
“Cleaning your mirror, dickwad. What does it look like I’m doing?”
Shit . I probably shouldn’t have said that, given he’s a guest.
He takes a couple of steps toward me and I have to move back, so I’m half-lying on the sinks. His eyes are narrowed and suspicious, his mouth taut. He’s seething. “What are you really doing here? How did you know this was my room?”
I push his chest and dip under his arm to get away. “Stop being an asshole. I’m cleaning your bathroom. And now I’m done, so goodbye.” I turn, scurry out of the bathroom and fling open the door to the suite. Marcella is two steps away, and she must see the panic in my eyes.
Her gaze darts behind me, and I realize Bennett is following me.
“Who are you?” he thunders.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Fordham,” Marcella says. “Eddie here is new. We were just finishing your suite. We’re all done.”
I don’t turn to see his expression. I just walk briskly towards the trollies outside the Avenue Suite, determined to hide the tremor in my hands.